Friday, July 08, 2016

Well I finished the rainbow jelly roll quilt and it's at the Ag Show as I type. Made the deadline, yahh. If only I was that conscience with baby due dates! So not to let the sewing machine think its on holidays, I trimmed these mod mosaic blocks down to 13 inches, sashed the internal borders with 1.5 inches and the outer borders with 6.5 inches. Laid it out on the floor and sandwiched it. Just like that. No folding it up for a year and moving onto the next project, lets sandwich it now!

I learnt my lesson from the last quilt. Clockwise this time Helen, clockwise. Also lowered my foot pressure from 2 down to 1. Both have made a huge improvement in the movement of the fabric. Above is after two bobbins have been use, look at the outer rim of the spiral, hardly any puckering at all. I'm using exactly the same thread as from the rainbow jelly roll quilt in the last post, a pale grey of Aurifil. Its quilting like a dream, I think I have nailed the giant spiral quilting technique!

Wednesday, July 06, 2016

The local Ag Show is coming up this weekend and I would really like to win a first prize in the Patchwork Quilt category. I've won second prize a few times, I've won first prize in the "Patchwork - Other Article" category and also "Appliqued Wall Hanging" but I would really like to take home the certificate saying first prize Patchwork Quilt. Saying that though, there is a new category, "Jelly Roll Quilt" this year. Not exactly the Patchwork Quilt category but getting close. So I pulled out this quilt top which has been sitting on the shelf unfinished since the Quilting Retreat in March last year.

The plan was to put it up and see if I could turn it into a few quick table runners. But when I spread it out on the floor, I thought hmmmm, this is actually not too bad. So I put together some rainbow spotty fabric for the backing and had it taped to the floor before you could say "lets watch another episode of Downton Abbey" as Grace and I got through a few seasons in the time Daz and Milly were away! We started back at the beginning and cried all over again when Sybil and Matthew died.

I ended up going a big spiral. I misread my notes though and went in an anti clockwise direction so by the end it was getting bulky through the neck of the machine. Above is how far I got after one bobbin change.

This is after three bobbin changes. Look how much movement there is around the edges. Fortunately there was no puckering underneath. Lucky!

And despite all that movement my lines of white are straight. This is after the fourth bobbin change. I'm going to keep on going and get the quilting down and the binding on tonight! Nothing like a deadline to get you going!

Sunday, July 03, 2016

I love school holidays as it means I can sew! We aren't going anywhere for the next two weeks which makes a change, I guess we can't go to Vegas every school holidays! Daz is going off on a few shirt (opps! short!!) fishing trips but I put forward my case of I want to stay home and do some sewing to see if I can enter a few quilts in the upcoming Ag Show. I quickly sandwiched this quilt, quilted it, squared it up and put the binding on.

Its all ready for its new home. It ended up measuring 46 x 38 inches,

The quilting was just up and down, Simple but effective.

Just after I took these shots of the quilt laying on the grass in the backyard, I stepped on a dead cane toad/ Well it had the legs of a cane toad but the body was long like a blue tongue lizard. It was bloated and freaked me out. When Daz got home I said something is dead on the back lawn, I trod on it, can you put it in the bin? Being the dutiful husband he is, he went out to remove the dead thing, only to come back inside minutes later laughing as I had stepped on a toy from the neighbors that had somehow been thrown over the back fence!

Wednesday, June 29, 2016

I sewed this on the weekend.The squares are from a layer cake I purchased in Vegas. The strips are from my stash. I needed a quick baby quilt for a lovely lady. I've decided to call this one "Rays of Sunshine". Since I took these photos on the weekend I have sandwiched it and am half way through quilting it. Hope she likes orange!